


Brighthelmstone Troubles

by toujours_nigel



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: 18th Century, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 21:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3303503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandy has a sentimental mother, an overwhelming aunt, and more sisters and cousins than a man knows what to do with. He's just glad for the six months respite.</p><p>(Like school, they keep him young.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brighthelmstone Troubles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lilliburlero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/gifts).



> for the prompt "Alec Deacon/Sandy Reid, historical AU".

When Sandy had received an invitation to study with Dr. Richard Russell, which he suspected his Father had been at great pains to obtain for him, since drinking and bathing in sea-water was rapidly becoming the fashion among the _beau monde_ and their emulators among the mercantile class and country gentlemen alike, it had been all he could do to prevent his mother and sisters from accompanying him, even in the depths of winter. Now, with mid-summer and the trials of the Season a comfortable month behind them, their arrival was of a surety.

“I am only glad,” he confided in Alec over the depleted breakfast-table, “to have had six months’ respite, for truly they are a trial to the soul.”

Alec, who possessed only one sister, and she beautiful, well-dowered and safely married for some years at this time, and consequently remained ignorant of the miseries of being the only son in a bevy of sisters and cousins, contented himself with a sardonic glance and vigorous application to the remnants of his ham.

Stung and determined not to shew it, for it did no good at all to let Alec know one had been hurt and instead rather induced him to launch into a dreary lecture about the dangers of having a sensitive nature or too much feeling, he said, quite brightly, “If you’ve any errands that need running do tell me now, I’ve to go to town to ensure that the house I took for them has been arranged to suit their comforts: the man I hired seemed competent enough but with such people one never knows.”

Alec twitched and Sandy was for a moment quite afraid and quite sure that the next words out of his mouth would have to do with servants available for hire at the sea-front in summer, though whether a withering speech about their failings or a glowing encomium about their industriousness one could never be sure. But he passed all of that over and said merely, “If you will wait some time and Robards will for once be efficient, I might accompany you into town. The house is on my way, and it will save Dickie from having to saddle up Gina.”

It was a practical thought, and kind in its own way, and Sandy had nodded assent already and begun the motions of rising from the table, which included a last tankard of small beer and a wistful contemplation of the eggs that had attained a tremulous perfection, when Alec added, with one his swift, winning smiles, “It will be the last hour I have with you for some while, and I find that I want to spin it out as well as I can.” He looked so handsome in his chair, with his dark red dressing-gown thrown carelessly over a shirt and breeches and the smile still playing over his lips, that Sandy was hard put not to fly at him and clamber into his lap and wish his mother and all the daughters of her house well lost for love.

Instead he positively fled into his dressing-room and pelted out of his dressing-gown and into breeches and waistcoat with little care for how they sat until Thompson, positively in tears, refused to be dispossessed of the cravat unless Sandy would promise to stand still: it was worth more than his job to have Mrs. Reid think her only son wasn’t been properly cared for; to that Sandy had little to oppose, and found the old trick of holding still answered as well in calming him as ever it had done in the days when he had been about to start school and nobody had thought he would be able to stand the discipline. His mother had been terribly anxious and had pleaded with his father to keep him at home with a tutor, all to no avail.

 

Alec, when he related all this, laughed and said, “Right of the old gentleman. Mothers can be appalling sometimes, and I’m sure you had a grand time at school.”

Sandy, who had been tearingly unhappy for the first year, said, “In time. But I think you’re being harsh. She has a sensitive nature.” In order to forestall the lecture, he added, “In a woman it is a very fine thing, and I am certain you would have been shocked had she let go of me with perfect ease of mind.”

Alec, who seemed on the verge of sarcasm, as he had many times in such a short morning, said “She ought to have been ruled by your father at the very start, as in the end she properly was. Well, my dear, I do not think less of her for having pangs about releasing you, for so I do also, even for so little a time.”

Sandy had to stop himself, yet again, which was rapidly becoming what is worse than boring, exasperating, for while words pitched low enough could go unnoticed, yet it would not do to risk more physical an intimation of their love. He said, to divert attention from his blushes, which Alec loved sometimes a little too well, “I will let you down now. That is the house, see, the pink one with the rose-trellis. You will come to dinner, of course, and bring Ralph if he wishes for company.”

Alec, damnably perceptive and suspiciously kind, smiled and bowed and said, “Very prettily done. If I can.” Then he was off and out on the street and Sandy, watching him weaving across and then into an alleyway, wondered what he had given away.

 

The house was as well accoutred and clean as could be expected, and rather better than Sandy had hoped. It took two hours or a trifle less for Thompson to transform it into a home fit for Mrs. Reid, Mrs. Adrian, for Sandy’s aunt was to come as well, and the various sisters and cousins, of whom three were to come down, but as they kept changing their minds Sandy had declined the trouble of ascertaining which and contented himself with the number. It being but an hour then to the arrival of the mail, and unlike the stage-coach it would be mindful of the hour unto the very minute, they hastened to the spot of its arrival and while Thompson ordered a very tolerable repast, and Dickie led the horses to water, Sandy frantically went over his rooms, the house, and the morning’s errands in his mind, but all seemed complete, or enough to pass muster. His mother was not so very given to finding fault, though Mrs. Adrian, dear Auntie Katharine could often be waspish.

Still, it was with good cheer and a clear conscience that he stood and set himself to rights, shaking out the folds of his coat and setting the tricorn more firmly upon his head, when the mail coach drew into the yard. The first passenger handed down was a man of middle-years, who looked as though he wanted nothing better than sleep and had been terribly deprived of it, little wonder since all the Reids and Adrians, Sandy himself in no way excepted, could talk for hours when they took it into their minds, and doubtless they had singly or severally made friends on the journey. In the next moment the twins, scorning help, had tripped one after the other out onto the stones and thence into his arms. Charis and Chloe, eighteen last month, and for the first time allowed out of the school-room or to travel without a governess, thought everything perfectly splendid and proceeded to tell him so without pause for breath or politeness, until he thought he might have to resort to the old and tried method of clapping a hand over their mouths.

His mother accomplished it with wonted elegance, through the simple device of standing quietly beside them and radiating a sphere of calm that soon penetrated the noise and chaos enveloping Sandy. Then she smiled quite naturally at him, drawing him into an embrace and subtly away from the girls and towards the others who had descended from the coach: Mrs. Adrian in conversation with a demure woman in a grey cloak, and dear Janet being handed down by a slight young man who looked to be her son.

“This is Mrs. Odell,” Aunt Adrian said after bestowing a matertal kiss, “and her son, Lawrence. They’ve come to drink the waters.”

“How d’ye do,” Sandy said dutifully, shaking hands and aiming a smile at Janet, who was being far more reticent than expected or reasonable. “I’m studying with Dr. Russell, I expect I’ll see you at the house.”

“You’ll see them before that,” Charis said. “They’re dining with us tomorrow night.” Their mother, engaged in supervising Thompson’s supervision of the disembarkment of their luggage, nodded decidedly and returned to her task.

“Please don’t feel obligated,” Odell said, with enough sincerity that Sandy checked his automatic interruption and waited to hear what more was on offer. But Odell only muttered something about not wanting to be troublesome and fell silent, looking to Mrs. Odell for assistance that did not come. The women must have decided already to form a party for the duration of their sojourn, and doubtless Odell only wanted to be left off for politeness, for he could have formed no great antipathy in so short an acquaintance.

“Nonsense,” Sandy retorted, rallying under his aunt’s eye. “Now we men shan’t be so outnumbered. I’ve been racking my brains the last several nights about it. But if you can come, and Alec can secure Ralph Lanyon, then we are quite secure, since Theo Sumner will as well and that makes us all equal and all friends, since Janet does not dine. Say you’ll come, do.”

Odell smiled, not the polite grin he’d offered up with a hand-shake, but something distant and valedictory and said, easily and clearly, "Well, if you can do with me. Thanks very much.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in 1756, no longer quite at random. Richard Russel is quite real, and started working in Brighton in 1750 or thereabouts and living there from '53.


End file.
